


Interregnum

by DaughterOfKings



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 03:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5650972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfKings/pseuds/DaughterOfKings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone works through their pain and exhaustion, drawing on whatever reserves of strength they still possess so that the Resistance can make its next move. But after that... </p><p>After that there is no escaping the damage done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interregnum

**Author's Note:**

> 1) In·ter·reg·num: noun: a period when normal government is suspended, especially between successive reigns or regimes; an interval or pause.

Things are frantic after the droids reveal the map. Everyone works through their pain and exhaustion, drawing on whatever reserves of strength they still possess so that the Resistance can make its next move. But after that...

After that there is no escaping the damage done.

The cacophony of emotions makes Leia’s skin crawl. She is a general, not a Jedi, but she has enough of a grasp of the Force to sense what is happening to her people- and just enough control to prevent her own grief from roiling out and shattering her in the process.

Just barely enough.

She is a general, not a Jedi.

But her chosen duties help; at least, they keep her from being still long enough to waver. She goes through the entire base, making sure that she’s seen, offering encouragement to the men and women who are still at their posts. She’s ordered as many of her fighters as possible to stand down, but most haven’t gone to their quarters yet. She finds them clustered in the infirmary, the mess hall, the scattering of common rooms- unwilling to part from one another’s company.

She finds Poe Dameron asleep beneath his x-wing.

She wishes she didn’t know why he needs the hard ground and the open air for comfort. But it’s her duty to know- in exacting detail- what was done to him. It’s her duty to know that her son is capable of darker things than her father ever was.

Panic rises in her throat when she thinks about what would have happened if Darth Vader had been able to tear knowledge from her mind, but she swallows hard to force it down. She won’t dwell on pain she never suffered when she’s looking at someone who suffered it willingly for their cause.

Poe’s astromech is resting against one of his knees, watching her in case she moves to disturb him. She gives it an approving nod and turns away.

She doesn’t know how long she walks around landing zone, avoiding the space the _Millennium Falcon_ had all too briefly occupied. Her mind doesn’t go blank; instead, the thoughts- her son, her father, her brother, her husband- cycle with intensifying speed, drowning out everything else.

Ben, Anakin, Luke, Han. Ben. Han-

The signal for an incoming ship startles her. It’s not accompanied by alarms, so the pilot must have transmitted the proper clearance codes, but she still doesn’t breathe until she sees the familiar shape of an x-wing breaking through the clouds. Flood lights illuminate the New Republic markings on its wings and fuselage as it touches down, and the techs start murmuring about who the pilot might be.

Leia already knows.

There aren’t many people, after all, who can fly like Wedge Antilles.

She hasn’t seen him in a long time, and, at first, she thinks that time has been kinder to him than it has to her. He still moves with the same easy grace she remembers, and when he takes off his helmet she can see that his hair, unlike hers, has hardly grayed. But when he gets close enough for her to see his face she can see the stress lines, the dark circles under his eyes.

He greets her with a formal salute and a weary smile. She returns both, then steps forward to embrace him, murmuring, “I’m glad that you’re alive, old friend.”

“So am I,” Wedge answers all too honestly. She feels the shudder that runs through him as he tightens his arms around her, and he says, “You were right, General. About everything. You tried to warn the Senate about the First Order, but-”

She steps backwards, shaking her head to cut him off. She doesn’t need this acknowledgement now, and no amount of praise or blame will change what has happened.

There is no escaping the damage done.

Wedge keeps speaking anyhow: “I never thought they could do worse than the Death Star. Or maybe I just didn’t want to think so.”

“The weapon was destroyed.” She can’t help glancing at Poe as she says it. He hasn’t stirred despite the commotion of Wedge’s landing, and she knows- remembers- what that kind of post-battle fatigue is like; it only goes away on its own terms.

Wedge’s sharp eyes follow hers, of course. “Shara’s son,” he says more than asks. At her confirming nod, he adds, “She would have been proud of him.”

“She wouldn’t have forgiven me.” Leia knows she should say more, but the words stick in her throat when she tries explain what she means. She doesn’t have the strength to confess that Shara’s son is the hero, but her son- her son- 

“I sent him out to die,” she blurts out.

“You’ve always sent people out to die,” Wedge says.

The words make her flinch, but there is no accusation in his tone. He is, she realizes, stating a simple truth. And, for a moment, she sees him as he was on Yavin 4, shaking hands with his friends one last time before going into battle. She’d sent them all out to die, too; there had been no other option.

Wedge looks at her as if he knows what she’s thinking. “Do you remember the next morning?” he asks. “After we destroyed the Death Star?”

She remembers finding him and Luke in the barracks, carefully boxing up the personal items that no longer belonged to anyone. She’d brought them breakfast and offered to help. “It was so quiet,” she says.

“Tomorrow it will be quiet here,” Wedge tells her. “You’ll get up early. You’ll make sure Shara’s son gets something to eat, and then you’ll help him go through the casualty lists. Then the Resistance will continue.”

“As it must," Leia says. "It has no other option."


End file.
